Practically every user of bar soap has been confronted with the problem of dealing with a bar of soap that has become so small from extensive use as to be difficult to utilize when taking a shower or a bath. A thrifty user of bar soap will often try to save the soap remnant by trying to cause the remnant to congeal with a fresh new bar of soap, and in other instances, the thrifty user will place the remnant in a container partially filled with water in the hope of making a viscous liquid that can later be used in hand washing.
Neither of these procedures is entirely satisfactory, for in many instances the soap remnant will not satisfactorily adhere to the new bar, and many persons desiring to wash their hands will shun the gooey mixture that often results from trying to make liquid hand soap out of bar soap remnants.
It is known to provide a dispenser device for receiving a soap remnant, in which the remnant can dissolve, so that a person desiring to wash his or her hands can hopefully cause a suitable quantity of liquid soap to thereafter be dispensed from the container of the device into his or her hand. The McCowan U.S. Pat. No. 2,477,998 is illustrative of such a device, and this patentee provides a screen shelf in a lower part of the container, to prevent the cake of soap from tending to close off and clog the outlet or discharge portion of the device.
Studies and research with regard to the McCowan type of device showed that many types of soap remnants are slow to dissolve, with the result being that the user trying to wash his or her hands often does not receive a sufficiently concentrated portion of liquid soap at the time of manipulation of a push plunger of the type shown in McCowan's Bar Soap Dispenser. Unfortunately, Patentee McCowan did not provide any means serving to agitate the water and soap combination so as to break up any lumps of soap existing in the container, which, if utilized, might well have served to cause the creation of liquid soap of a suitable concentration.
Although not specifically designed for use with soap remnants, the Quisling U.S. Pat. No. 3,698,605 is a solution dispenser utilizing a perforated cage suspended just above the bottom of his container to allow liquid to pass through at such time as an atomizer bulb is manipulated by the user. Here, also, there is the absence of any means that would serve to bring about a sufficiently concentrated liquid soap mixture out of a collection of bar soap remnants.
It was in an effort to overcome the distinct disadvantages of these types of devices that the present invention was created.